"Writing is a skill, not a talent, and thus one's ability as a writer can be improved by thoughtful effort. The problem with some people is that they graduate college as good writers, experience early success on account of that, and thus never devote themselves diligently to the relentless quest for improvement that could make them great writers."

It is interesting that Johnson's hate list appeared just hours after I spoke at length with a New York Times reporter -- excited by his move leftward, they're doing a big story on Johnson. Coincidence? Of course!

Heh. "Question the timing!" Spencer has been one of Johnson's numerous victims, and we may suppose that the NY Times will portray Mad King Charles as a courageous truth-teller.

Paul Belien of Brussels Journal is deeply connected with the Vlaams Belang, and Robert knows this. The fact that he’s put them back in his blogroll speaks volumes about the choice he's made.And Gates of Vienna has turned into a reeking sewer of racism. I'm done with Robert Spencer. And very, very disappointed in him.

You see the control-freak method here: CJ declares that a list of people and groups (in this case, Brussels Journal, Paul Belien, Vlaams Belang, Gates of Vienna) are unacceptable. Anyone who doesn't accept CJ's categorization is a "sympathizer" and therefore also unacceptable. Gates of Vienna quipped:

As the arbiter of membership in the Counterjihad, Charles Johnson has finally made it official: he’s a Counterjihad of One.

All of that happened before Election Day 2008. It wasn't until after Election Day that I finally spoke out:

Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs has apparently decided that the problem with the conservative movement is that it needs more purges, and Pam Geller at Atlas Shrugs seems to be his designated scapegoat. . . .Pam is a good person and I would suggest that this guilt-by-association "urge to purge" is antithetical to the best interests of conservatism. You can't build a movement by the process of subtraction.

That was Nov. 5, 2008. In February of this year, I spoke out again when CJ attacked Ann Coulter and spoke out again in April when Johnson smeared Pamela Geller as a "Poster Girl for Eurofascists." Two days later, after CJ threatened Michelle Malkin (!) because she continued linking JihadWatch, I wrote:

Is there someone -- anyone -- who can stop this madness?

Apparently not. If the conservative movement would not acknowledge Charles Johnson's authority to decide who was and was not acceptable as a member of the conservative movement, then Johnson would not be a member of the conservative movement.

It would have been nice if he would have made his rules of engagement clear at the outset, or at least issued some kind of warning before he started denouncing people willy-nilly. But he has played the part of a scoundrel, and the damage he inflicted on the counter-jihad alliance -- those who, like Geller and Spencer, have dedicated themselves to fighting Islamofascism -- was quite real.

Giving us a glimpse at the bats that occupy his belfry, CJ randomly lumps in anti-war critics of the Bush administration -- Pat Buchanan and Lew Rockwell -- with Ann Coulter, et al. The nonsensical nature of his categorizations is exposed as he continues down his list of "reasons" for denouncing the Right:

Wait a minute: Alex Jones? The 9/11 Truther guy? Is there any conservative blogger who hasn't taken a swipe at that particular punching bag? And how does Limbaugh merit inclusion in the same category? But never mind that -- "climate deniers"? After the CRU revelations, isn't that pretty much everybody?

The conclusive evidence that Mad King Charles has slipped into the zero-self-awareness zone occupied by Andrew Sullivan comes when he points the finger at his fellow bloggers and former allies in the counter-jihad:

Bingo, Vinnie! Johnson spent years doing exactly what he now accuses others of doing. But that was back when "anti-Islamic bigotry" was what The Cool Kids did and, at some point, CJ decided The Cool Kids should do something else.

When The Cool Kids wouldn't let CJ make the rules? Well, they weren't The Cool Kids anymore.

Once upon a time, I was a mere commenter on Charles Johnson's Little Green Footballs. Eventually, I posted so many well-received comments on LGF that I started this blog. I admired Charles Johnson as one of the righteous gentiles. Life was good.But like more than 1,500 other people, when Charles turned Left in November 2008, I became expendable and was eventually banned from posting on LGF.

Admit it, Carl: You're a hate-monger. Just like Ace of Spades. And Pamela Geller. And Robert Spencer. And Ann Coulter. And . . .

UPDATE II: To theorize an answer to the "why now" question about CJ's denunciation, how about his mention of SIOE (Stop the Islamicization of Europe)? Just yesterday, Pamela Geller put up a post with this headline:

This may have provoked Johnson's rage. So congratulations again to Pamela, whose knack for accidentally pushing CJ's buttons is commendable.

What obtrudes in CJ's hate-list modus operandi is that he cannot rationally prioritize dangers. Pamela Geller, creationists, Tea Party crowds, global-warming skeptics and Sarah Palin are, in the demented mind of Mad King Charles, as dangerous as al Qaeda. Or me.

So I've enjoyed the laughter as Johnson (who pulled out of PJM in 2007, which some at the time suspected was due to Johnson's resentment of Michelle Malkin) has destroyed his own once-successful site and resorted to the blogospheric equivalent of "busking." Despite CJ's transparent malice, I have kept in mind the advice Andrew Jackson got from his mother:

"Never tell a lie, nor take what is not your own, nor sue anybody for slander, assault and battery. Always settle them cases yourself."

Whatever harm CJ has inflicted on me or anyone else, his "success" in turning Little Green Footballs into an unprofitable imitation of Daily Kos is as much vindication as any of his victims can expect.

Vindication, however, doesn't pay the bills. So if you feel an urge to hit the Big Tip Jar Of Hate -- hey, don't fight the feeling.

I would have preferred a detailed description of the moment when all that inclusive thoughtful concern hit him like a silver bullet, when the switch flipped on the bright shining light on the road to Damascus, when . . . enveloped by its warm, mentally balanced, nurturing embrace . . . he started frothing about the hateful craziness.

Of course, CJ hasn't traveled the road to Damascus, but the road to Bedlam. Rhetorical engagement might require us to stipulate, hypothetically, that perhaps not all liberals are insane. But Johnson's addition to their ranks undermines that hypothesis.

Chuckles isn't having an awakening, he's simply living out whatever the hell it is that passes for a reality of sorts in his cyber-induced dream-dementia of a world.

Dead on the money, Dan. My 8-year-old son just brought me an egg-salad sandwich and chips. He made the egg salad himself, from the brown eggs provided by the chickens in our backyard.

That's reality. My wife, my kids, my friends -- reality.

The abstract symbolism of ideological debate on the Internet? Well, at some point, if you start taking that crap too seriously, you can become detached from reality, and begin ranting at people as if they were merely symbols, projected visions of your own externalized fears.

Those who take the historical view of such things will be tempted to wonder: Is the fact that CJ first signaled his madness by lashing out at Pamela Gellerentirely coincidental?

Merely a point to ponder while I remind you of my own reality, where people at the heating-oil company and the cell-phone company expect bills to be paid or they'll shut me off. Hit the Big Tip Jar of Hate.

I know it isn't true but I am going to claim credit for finally sending Johnson around the bend. His psychotic break occurred mere hours after I posted this:

I now realize that CRU wasn't hacked to expose the Global warming fraud. Charles Johnson hacked them so he could then play the role of their defender and increase traffic to his site again. Kind of like the theory that the person who reports an Arson fire is the arsonist looking to be a hero.

Actually this has been coming for awhile but I am actually surprised he went as public as he did. Now it's completely obvious that he has an agenda and an axe(s) to grind. He can't pretend to a calm neutral arbiter of fact. He has very publicly chosen sides.

I am one of the banned too. Just for simply down-dinging an anti-Glenn Beck post. I emailed Charles and politely asked for an explanation, but he did not reply. Sad. I used to go to LGF every day. I even gave Charles a couple of hat tips. Now I can't even remember the last time I went there.

I find it incredibly strange that Geller would be the anchor, pivot, or whatever for the ongoing argument between Johnson and "the conservative blogosphere."

If she's that controversial, why not just settle the matter by drawing a Venn diagram and once and for all establishing the size and shape of "Pamela Geller territory" (i.e. the area of overlap between ignorance, dishonesty, paranoia and just plain shithouse rat crazy)?

If she's that controversial, why not just settle the matter by drawing a Venn diagram and once and for all establishing the size and shape of "Pamela Geller territory" (i.e. the area of overlap between ignorance, dishonesty, paranoia and just plain shithouse rat crazy)?

Funny, I always think of two inverted bell curves when I am thinking of Pam Geller...

Looks like Excitable Chucky has resorted to the "look at me, Mom. Mom, hey, Mom, look at me. Over here, Mom" method. His traffic is tanking, he has like 5 people who comment back and forth, and he has become more of a joke than Andrew Sullivan.

LOL. He called you a 'fascist'? I recall from Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language" (which is well worth rereading from time to time) that even when he wrote that, Orwell made the comment that "fascist" doesn't mean anything anymore other than something that isn't wanted. Heh.

Charles Johnson continues to support his globalist agenda, which is to flatten all traditional cultures at home and abroad, and replace them with a monolithic world culture. Just check out his praise of fellow globalists (and government supremacists) Victor Davis Hanson and Irving Kristol.

Johnson's the consistent one here. While he's all for the "democratizing" invasion and reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, he's just as passionate in opposing grass-roots efforts in Europe and America to preserve Western, Christian culture from Muslim and Latino colonization.

That's why the Neocon Wars initially won the full support of both leftists, such as Hillary Clinton and Chris Hitchens, and Neocons, including Dick Cheney and Jamie Kirchik -- and why REAL conservatives, such as Pat Buchanan, Michael Hill, and Thomas Fleming, opposed those wars as the radical global jihads they actually were.

Charles Johnson has become the thinking loons "Rev Jim Sutter" of chasingevil.org. Like Sutter his stock and trade is libel and defamation. Don't have any facts, just make them up. I am convinced that he is just as insane as the phony Rev. More evidence that liberalism makes one loony

If the conservative movement would not acknowledge Charles Johnson's authority to decide who was and was not acceptable as a member of the conservative movement, then Johnson would not be a member of the conservative movement.

Which is prett darn funny, considering that Charles Johnson was never, ever, a conservative himself. He is a leftist who supported the GOP for a time after 911, much like Chris Hitchens. And that's all.

Charles Johnson as you said in your article is a control freak. His whole "it's not a right but a privilege to post here" What an EGO this man has. I used to post and one night he kicked me out for calling Obama some name. And if you look at his minions, they all lap up his every word. Give him "Plus" signs galore. LGF is a cult and a pretty stupid one. All the things they used to go gaga over is now forbotten. Who gives a damn about LGF.

I don't miss it one bit. Good riddance. He even had a chat room where he kept all the tramscripts. It's like a wacked out pyscho movie . Watch him comment on the typos in this post.Does this man have a girlfriend. He's become pretty pathetic. Little bot lizards bow down to KING CHARLES. There I've said my peace.

Hit the tip jar, you ungrateful bastards!

Understand Liberalism

"When R.S. McCain talks about gonzo journalism, he knows what he’s talking about."-- Chapomatic"You are reading Robert every day, aren’t you? If you aren’t, you’re missing out, folks. The guy brings the good stuff every day."-- Jimmie, The Sundries Shack

". . . the one-of-a-kind Robert Stacy McCain, whose blog should be on your must-read list, if it isn't already."-- Dyspeptic Mutterings

"The most enthusiastic blogger I have yet to meet."-- Pam Geller, Atlas Shrugs

"The guy has to be the hardest working dude in DC. I've yet to meet someone here he doesn't know."-- Dan Riehl, Riehl World View

"One of the most important conservative writers working today."--Donald Douglas"For what it's worth, the man can also hold his liquor better than most; that's probably how he gets his scoops."-- Little Miss Atilla